True to You

by Jennifer Ryan

  “What does that mean?”

  He wanted to tell her how beautiful he found her, but held back the words the way he held back touching her soft cheek to ease the tension out of her.

  Confused by the direction she took away from him being happy here and her touching him, which made him think she wanted him for a split second before reason overtook hormones and he reminded himself she was off-limits, he said, “You tell me.”

  “She throws herself at you all the time.”

  “She does that to just about every good-looking guy who walks through the door.”

  “Exactly. She’s fun. She likes to go out with men, enjoy their company, and move on.”

  He tilted his head and studied her. “And you’re not like her.” Cara wasn’t the love-them-and-leave-them type. He didn’t need her to say it to know it. So why this strange conversation? Why hold on to him but make him think she wanted to be left alone, too? “Look, if you’re warning me away again—”

  “No.”

  That stopped him in his mental tracks. Maybe instead of always wanting him to back off, she wanted him to come closer?

  Her grip tightened on him, but her gaze darted away, then came back filled with a shyness he’d never seen in her. “I thought that maybe . . . if you were—”

  “Cara.” The sharp voice startled her, but the immediate surprise that widened her eyes vanished and turned to cold fury.

  Engrossed in each other, neither of them heard the car pull into the drive or Iceman walk into the barn. He stood in the entry, staring at them, his eyes sharp and intense on Flash.

  “What’s going on here?” Iceman’s gaze dropped to their joined hands.

  Cara pulled her hand free, lost the uncertainty in her eyes, and turned to glare at her father. “What are you doing here?”

  Iceman held up an envelope. The sight of it made Cara tense and her hands ball into fists.

  “You could have left that at the shop. You know I don’t want you coming here. All you do is bring trouble. If the cops are following you, and they probably are, it won’t be long before they’re serving search warrants for this place looking for that shit you run. How many times do I have to tell you to stay away?”

  “The cops didn’t follow me.” He held up the envelope. “This is for you. I wanted to be sure you got it. That’s the deal. And I’m your father. I wanted to see you and make sure you’re okay.” Iceman stared past Cara and pinned Flash in his angry gaze.

  “You don’t give a shit if I’m okay. And I don’t want that damn envelope.”

  Flash couldn’t keep quiet anymore. He wanted to know what the hell was going on here. Pissed they got interrupted, he wanted even more to know what Cara had been about to say to him a minute ago. Before Iceman interrupted the moment they shared. Maybe it was a good thing they got interrupted because his mind took a turn to Dream Town where Cara was asking if there could be something between them. He shook off that thought because there could never be anything between them. Not when he was here to take down the man standing in front of them.

  “What the hell is going on? Why is he paying you off?” It wasn’t such a reach to see the envelope had to be stuffed with money.

  Cara didn’t look at him, but kept her gaze locked on Iceman. “He’s not paying me off. The Castillo cartel is.”

  Those honest and bold words made Flash’s heart thrash in his chest.

  What the hell? What did Cara have to do with the Castillo cartel? “Why?”

  “Go ahead, tell him,” she dared Iceman.

  “Let it go,” Iceman ordered, though the look in his eyes said he hadn’t let it go and felt guilty as hell about it. Whatever it was.

  Cara turned to Flash, hate and anger in her eyes. “You want to know why I’m such a cold bitch?”

  He didn’t answer the rhetorical question. He wouldn’t describe her that way in the first place. Guarded. Scared. Sad. Lonely. All those things applied, but not cold. She cared. Deeply. About Tim, Tandy, Ray, the shop, her customers, this place. Even him. Why else would she ask if he was happy here? She wouldn’t go out of her way to make this place feel like such a comfortable home if she didn’t care. He wouldn’t mind living there even if it wasn’t part of his job.

  She just didn’t want anyone to see how much she cared because she didn’t want anyone to use it against her.

  Cara waved her hand toward her father. “You know who he is, what he does, the kind of life he leads. It’s all about the money, moving the product, but more than anything it’s about his reputation. You can’t let your rivals think you’re weak or they’ll take what you have and kill you. So you can’t care about anyone but yourself.”

  Iceman’s mouth pinched into a thin line. “Cara, that’s not fair.”

  “Fair! Nothing in my life has ever been fair. You neglected me and Mom. You left us and never looked back.”

  “To keep you out of my world and safe.” Iceman’s words lacked the conviction expected to add punch to them. Instead, Iceman said the words like he’d said them a hundred times in an argument they’d repeated until the going round and round sapped both of them to the point the words held no meaning at all because no one believed them anymore and nothing got solved.

  Cara held her disfigured hand up. “Out of your world? Safe? So long as you are who you are, I’m never safe. They’ll use me to get to you.”

  “Because of who I am, you are protected.”

  “Right,” she scoffed. “Because everyone knows how dangerous you can be. When you want to be. Except you left me there. You didn’t lift a finger to help me. And I lost mine.” She rubbed her fingers over the scars where her pinky used to be.

  Iceman raked his fingers through his white hair, frustration pulling his brows together and narrowing his eyes. “If you’d give me a chance—”

  “I gave you plenty of chances. But I’m not a little girl anymore. I see you for who and what you are now. Destroyer of lives. Mom’s. Mine. Everyone you sell that crap to. You turned your back on your family for another one.”

  Iceman planted his hands on his hips and sighed out his frustration. “I was in this life long before I met your mother. Once you’re in, Cara, there is no out.”

  “We both know that’s the life you want. You love it. The power. The money. The game. Leave the envelope on the table.” She notched her chin to the table between them. A world of hurt and anger separated them even more. “Go play with other people’s lives and stay out of mine.”

  Iceman set the envelope on the table but kept his index finger pointed down on it. “Manny Castillo didn’t get away with hurting you. I made sure of it.”

  Yes, he did. Flash knew all too well how Iceman made Castillo pay. By turning the DEA, Flash in particular, into his personal assassin. Bitterness soured his gut and riled the angry monster inside him who wanted to lash out at Iceman and make him pay for all he’d done.

  “Making him pay me every month to keep the truce between you and them isn’t justice.”

  “Wait, what?” Flash couldn’t have heard her right. “Manny Castillo can’t be paying you.” Flash killed him when Iceman set him up at the warehouse.

  Iceman stood at his full height, muscles flexed and ready to strike if Flash said anything more. “He pays so he’ll never forget what he did to her. He owes her a debt, and he’ll pay the rest of his life.”

  Holy shit. He wasn’t Manny. He was Iceman.

  Cara wanted nothing to do with Iceman, but he paid her every month as a way to take care of her and make amends for what happened to her. Manny must have used her to get Iceman to meet some demands, or just to make a name for himself within his tyrannical father’s organization. He might have even done it to show his loyalty and earn a higher spot.

  Iceman didn’t tell her Manny was dead and gone and could never hurt her again. He paid her, so he’d never forget what happened to his little girl. Not that he could. Flash saw it now. The guy wasn’t a cold-blooded bastard. Iceman loved her. Deeply. He may be
a shit father, but he cared. In his way. He wanted to take care of Cara. In his way. And he knew that being a part of her life in any other way than a man who stayed on the fringes of her world would only make Cara a target and put her in more danger.

  “Like that asshole gives a shit about what he did to me. You didn’t. He chopped off my finger and sent it to you with a demand you pay to get me back. But you didn’t. You ignored him. You couldn’t give in to him, or he’d think you were weak. Not even for me would you bow to him.”

  “It wasn’t like that, Cara.” Iceman’s whispered words didn’t soften Cara at all.

  “Right. Well, like all the other times I needed you and you didn’t come through, I saved myself.” She stared down at the envelope, vibrating with rage. She walked over and ripped it out from under his finger. “Thanks for the delivery. Now leave. It’s what you do best.” Cara walked right out the front door without looking back.

  Iceman stared him down. “Do not tell her Manny Castillo is dead.”

  “Why? It may give her some peace.”

  “She’s right. So long as I’m alive, she’s in danger. Maybe not from Manny anymore, but others who would like to get to me through her.”

  “The man held her hostage, terrorized her and God knows what else, chopped off her finger, and sent it to you. Don’t you think she’d feel better knowing he’s not coming after her again?”

  “He never sent it to me.”

  Taken off guard, Flash stilled. “What?”

  “I didn’t even know what happened.”

  “She said—”

  “She doesn’t know.” Iceman shrugged like it didn’t mean anything, but it did. A lot. “He made her think he sent it to me as some kind of ransom demand.”

  “You want her to think that so she’ll stay away from you.”

  “As far away as possible.”

  “Then why show up here and at the shop all the time?”

  Iceman pinned him in his cold gaze. “I will always look out for her. Even when I’m not seen.”

  Flash understood the warning.

  Iceman relaxed again. “She’s my kid. My only child. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t seem to help myself sometimes. I need to see her face, see if she’s happy and getting by okay. I need to be sure the people in her life treat her right.”

  Another threat.

  Flash didn’t acknowledge it or put up a useless defense. “So you give her money she thinks is coming from the bastard who hurt her to get to you. Why? Why did he take her if he didn’t want to get something from you?”

  “Because he was a crazy fuck obsessed with her. He didn’t just take her. He seduced her into believing he was just like her. Against his father, the family business, and wanting a normal life. He pretended that he wanted to get away from his family and all the shit he’d been dragged through since he was a kid.”

  “Exactly the way she felt.”

  “He played her. My best guess is that he wanted to marry her as some means to unite the two families and create a business cooperation between us.”

  “Guzman would never work with the Castillos.” Flash knew that much based on all he’d learned in his work with the DEA, but Iceman would think the knowledge came from his brief stint selling drugs and bunking with Scott in jail.

  “He might have if I’d gone to him and persuaded him that we could trust them because my daughter was married to Castillo’s son. Ties like that matter.”

  “But Cara figured it out.”

  “It wasn’t the first time a man used her to get in good with me.” Iceman eyed Flash, looking for any sign Flash was doing the same thing.

  “I’m not here to join your crew.”

  Iceman read the honesty in that statement and relaxed again.

  Good. Because that wasn’t Flash’s mission. He meant to use Cara to get information on Iceman’s crew in an indirect manner, but she didn’t speak of her father and getting her to trust him wasn’t easy. He’d begun to think this mission futile without getting directly involved with Iceman. Now he wondered if turning Cara against her father wasn’t the easier route to get her to give him the information. It would require a level of trust on his part to let her know who he really was and that he came to take her father down. If he blew his cover and she outed him to Iceman, she’d put a target on his back as well as let Iceman know the DEA was closing in.

  “Manny lost sight of what drew Cara to him in the first place.”

  “Their shared disdain for what their families did for a living.”

  “Exactly. When he started making plans for their new life together, how the two families would work together, she tried to leave him. He snapped.”

  “He wasn’t the kind of guy who took rejection well.”

  “He’d been handed everything he ever wanted on a silver platter his whole life. Women dropped at his feet with their legs spread because of his good looks, charm, and wealth. Cara challenged him. He liked that about her, but he still expected her to do what he wanted when he wanted it.”

  “That’s not Cara.”

  “No. So he made her pay and turned her against me. Not that it was hard to do, since she’d distanced herself from me since she was a kid. He took the tenuous relationship I had with her and made her believe I’d turn my back on her for business, that she meant nothing to me. Nothing to him after what she thought they had together.”

  “He was one sick bastard.”

  “He deserved a worse death than he got.”

  Flash held his breath, hoping Iceman hadn’t uncovered his true identity and knew he’d been the sniper to pull the trigger on Manny Castillo.

  “I wanted to do it myself, but couldn’t jeopardize Guzman’s operation and start an all-out war with the Castillo cartel.”

  “So you set it up, but made it look like your hands were clean.” They weren’t.

  Flash understood why Iceman set him up. Manny deserved to die for what he’d done, but it didn’t sit well with Flash. Cara deserved justice, but Flash didn’t like playing executioner for Iceman. He believed in the law.

  He also felt the overwhelming desire to kill the fuck again for manipulating such a sweet, kind woman and laying a hand on Cara.

  “I did what I had to do. I’ve done a hell of a lot worse, believe me.”

  Oh, Flash believed him, all right. He’d read Iceman’s file cover to cover more than once and the atrocities attributed to the man in front of him were nightmares come to life and executed with cold calculation. So much so that building a case was near impossible with so little evidence.

  Iceman held him in his cold stare. “Stay out of my daughter’s life.”

  “Kind of hard to do.”

  “Why? Because you want her? I saw the way you were looking at her, the way you held her hand.”

  Flash didn’t owe Iceman an explanation for what he saw when he came in. Flash didn’t understand it well enough to explain it anyway. He didn’t know where the conversation they had shared was going. But he wanted to find out. If Cara hadn’t retreated back into her head and her isolated world again, he might find a way to get close enough to bring her over to his side and take Iceman down. Because that might be the only way to keep her safe from now on.

  “Cara is my boss. I work for her. She gave me a place to stay and cooks me better meals than my mom ever did.” He wasn’t going to tell his mother that. Ever. “I owe her for taking me in while I’m on parole. I intend to stay out of your world, just like her. So if someone comes here looking for trouble or to cause her any, they’ll find me in their way. Clear?” Flash hoped Iceman got the inference that he was included in that.

  Iceman shook his head. “Scott said you could take care of her.”

  “He’d know. I saved his ass twice.”

  “Trouble comes, you save hers.”

  The intensity in Iceman’s words struck Flash right in the chest and made it hard to breathe. “Are you expecting trouble?”

  “Always. But it better not come from y
ou. For her sake. And yours. Her safety and welfare come first, or you might end up like Castillo.”

  The warning and intended death threat in those words came through loud and clear. He had to admire the guy for looking out for his little girl. Flash would do the same for his and not apologize for it either.

  Iceman walked out, stopped on the walkway, and stared up at Cara’s house for one long minute. He climbed into his car and drove away, leaving Flash standing in the entry, staring out the windows and desperately fighting the urge to go to Cara. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to know what she’d been about to say to him when Iceman arrived and ruined the moment. He wanted to erase all the thoughts in his head about Cara in Manny’s brutal hands and lost in his lies.

  He didn’t want to dream about having her in his arms, but they ached to hold her. Those dreams sent him down a desire-filled path that had him aching for a hell of a lot more than just holding her against him. He wanted her under him, over him, wrapped around him. He wanted her calling his name.

  Shit.

  She didn’t even know his name. Not his real name. She didn’t know him at all.

  He turned from the window and away from her once again.

  It got harder to do each and every day he spent with her.

  Chapter Nine

  Cara worked the soft yarn over the knitting needles and tried to focus on the task and not her rambling thoughts. Her father always set her off and the thoughts and nightmares that plagued her without him bringing the past back into focus. She spent far too many nights like this scolding herself for being stupid and gullible and naive and believing in someone who came from the same sort of background as her, but who had embraced all the dark parts of their world. Not for the first time, she wanted to pack up and leave this place. Never come back. Never see her father or anyone in this town ever again.

  Running had never been her way.

  The stubborn streak in her told her to stay put, stand her ground, not let her father ruin her life ever again.